1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card clothing for carding machines, including a plurality of flexible card wires, which card wires consist of staple shaped wire sections including each a pair of legs integrally connected to each other by the staple crown, which staple legs define the teeth and which staple crown defines the base web of each card wire section, which teeth define lanes extending in the direction of the flow of the material to be carded relative to the card clothing, and which card wires are inserted in a pattern-like arrangement into a card fillet. Carding machines belonging to the textile industry are used to expose or lay open, respectively, the individual fibres and to arrange these fibres to form a web or sliver, respectively, and specifically to clean the fibre material in case of a cotton spinning procedure. Such carding machines comprise generally a rotating carding cylinder and a plurality of flat bars, whereby the carding cylinder interacts with the flats to open and comb the fibres and to remove foreign matter thereform. To this end the jacket of the carding cylinder and the surfaces of the flats are provided with teeth, with upstanding wires, pins or needles. Generally the carding cylinder rotates and the flats move in the same direction as the carding cylinder but at different speeds.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Commonly known and standardized card clothing in rigid, half-rigid or flexible construction are set into the card fillets in pattern known as flat stitch, rib stitch or diagonal stitch. Seen in the direction of fibre flow these stitch patterns comprise lanes arranged evenly between the single teeth, which lanes can feature various widths, depending from the fineness of the card clothing, from the wire gauge of the card wire. The carding efficiency is influenced specifically when handling cotton. to a large extent by the width of the lanes. If lanes with a comparatively large width are present, neps will more easily glide between the respective teeth in comparison with a construction having relatively narrower lanes. Accordingly, efforts are made to arrive at as narrow lanes as possible. This is, however, not possible or limited, respectively, by the stitch patterns in accordance with the prior art; that is, it is not possible to design arbitrarily narrow lanes because such leads to a detrimental distribution of the teeth of the card clothing or alternatively, this would lead to the presence of a too small number of teeth per surface area unit. A too small number of teeth is also detrimental to the combing or carding, respectively, effect.